Football is back at Whittell

The Whittell High football team will hold its first official practice today despite losing two players to fall baseball.

Head coach Dennis Young handed out equipment on Tuesday and expects 20-22 players at today’s practice, which will run from 8 a.m. until noon at the school.

“We’re going ahead with the team and we’ll see what happens,” Young said. “We don’t really have enough kids yet, but it’s going to work. We’ll make it work.”

Two upperclassmen last week decided to play fall baseball rather than play football. One was rising senior Chris Shapiro, an all-state baseball player who was likely to be the starting quarterback. Instead, Young will rotate two signal-callers, Ty Anderson and his son, Jeff.

There was no football team at Whittell last season after numerous injuries led to the abandonment of the program before the season began.

Tahoe Storm captures tourney titles

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The Tahoe Storm beat Diamond Bar in a penalty kick shootout to win the Come Up For Air Tournament last month in South Lake Tahoe.

The Storm, an under-14 girls’ team, won three straight games to start the tournament, including a 4-2 win over Diamond Bar, to reach the final on July 20. Diamond Bar went ahead 1-0 early in the championship game before the Storm tied it in the second half, and two five-minute overtime periods were scoreless.

The Storm also won a tournament in Pacifica on June 19-20, also in a shootout, over local rival Tahoe Nightmare. The tournament wins wrapped up a successful season for the club which included two league championships, including an undefeated spring season in a Reno/Carson City league in which the Storm scored 50 goals while allowing only one. They finished the year with a 32-4-4 record.

A team from Henderson is one win away from heading to the Little League World Series after hitting four home runs on the way to beating Arizona, 15-2, in the West Region semifinals on Tuesday in San Bernardino.

Green Valley will face unbeaten Conejo Valley today in a nationally-televised game on ESPN2 at 5 p.m. Conejo Valley beat Northern California, 3-1, in the other semifinal.

The winner of today’s game will advance to Williamsport, Pa., from Aug. 20 to 29 for the Little League World Series. No Nevada team has ever made it to the World Series in the 11-12 age bracket.